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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Roy Issa; Kenneth R. Leitch; Byungik Chang P.E.

Implementing Sustainability with a Solar Distillation Project Roy Issa1, Kenneth Leitch1 and Byungik Chang2 1 West Texas A&M University/ 2University of New HavenAbstractStudents in the mechanical and civil engineering programs at West Texas A&M University areexposed to sustainability in a wide variety of required courses in thefreshman through seniorlevel coursework. The projects in these courses are carefully selected to provide an in-depthunderstanding of sustainability through analytical and experimental studies. In thermal-fluiddesign, students were asked to build an environmentally friendly and energy efficient systemforthe distillation of

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Alison Whittemore; Okan Caglayan

2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Conference Senior Engineering Capstone Project: Modular Advanced River Barge System (M.A.R.S) Alison Whittemore, PhD and Okan Caglayan, PhD University of the Incarnate Word Yura Galvez Padyn Giebler Andrew Grossman Max MartinezAbstractTo celebrate the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city of San Antonio, the San AntonioRiver Authority (SARA) and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) sponsored an opencompetition for a redesigned river barge. The

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Dani Fadda P.E.

2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Conference Stronger Student Engagement in the Undergraduate Heat Transfer Course through a Numerical Project Dani Fadda, Ph.D., P.E. Mechanical Engineering Department The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science (The Jonsson School) The University of Texas at DallasAbstractA numerical heat transfer project was used to complement a conventional heat transfer lecturecourse and its corresponding heat transfer lab. The numerical project helped students relate to theheat transfer course material and improved their

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Ilse Nava-Medina; Angie Hill Price; Mathew Kuttolamadom

. Thoughundergraduate research is identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities as ahigh-impact educational practice, it is not commonly encouraged or pursued within engineeringtechnology programs (as compared to engineering programs) predominantly due to the hands-on andexperiential nature of the curriculum. This paper will outline and compare the different types ofundergraduate research activities pursued by various students within this engineering technologyprogram; these include single and multi-semester individual and group research projects, acceleratedprojects over summer sessions with and without university-level schedules/organization, projectshaving participants from multiple departments, research as part of honors theses

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Luis Martinez Medellin; Edward Pines; Patricia Sullivan; Arthur Cox; Motoko Furuhashi

Educationprinters, microcontrollers such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi are also fairly popular. As thecomplexity of projects increase, there may be a need for items like CNC machines and lasercutters that may not be available in all university makerspaces Such equipment may, however, beavailable within specialized laboratories and/or shops within the institution.BackgroundThe Aggie Innovation Space (AIS) is a college-based maker space facility at New Mexico StateUniversity originally established as a pathfinder project by engineering faculty participating inthe cohort-based Pathways to Innovation project led by Stanford University and VentureWelland funded by the National Science Foundation. Following several iterations of managementmodels, the AIS has

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Tariq Khraishi; Kristine Denman

Institute for Social Research University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131 kdenman@unm.eduAbstractIn this paper, the authors discuss the experiences of a National Science Foundation STEP (STEMTalent Expansion Program) award to the School of Engineering at the University of New Mexico(UNM). The setup of this STEP project is unique in the sense that it focuses its efforts and activityfunding on internships and professional conference participation trips for early career engineeringand computer science students. In addition to a background on the national STEP Program, thepaper discusses the constructive elements of this project and the data

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Magdalena Grohman; Eun Ah Lee; Nicholas Gans; Marco Tacca; Matthew Brown

ConferenceAbstractThe study aimed at investigating: the group dynamics underlying ethical decision-making inSenior Design Project (SDP) teams and research labs, and the role of ethics experts in the ethicaldecision-making. Using cognitive ethnography, we analyzed research activities in engineeringresearch laboratories, and SDP teams’ discussions about ethics issues, with or without thepresence of ethics experts. We found that student teams demonstrated multi-layeredunderstanding of engineering ethics: explicit and implicit. Those two types of understandingmanifested themselves differently across SDP teams. At the explicit level, SDP teams understoodtheir technical responsibility and practical work ethics, but at the same time rarely showedappreciation for

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Scott Koziol; Christian Tulowiecki; John DiCecco; Jason Gaudette

atBaylor University. The course, Microprocessor Systems, is a required junior level class in theElectrical and Computer Engineering program. This course does not have an explicit laboratorysection assigned to it so these experiments face two constraints: First, they take place during thelecture time, and second, they typically take place in a lecture room which does not have test andmeasurement equipment. The solution to this is to require each student to purchase a low costmicrocontroller board that they can use with their personal laptops which they bring to class.Many of the experiments do not need test equipment, but when this is needed lab space must bereserved or the students must complete the projects on their own time.In the following

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Pranav Bhounsule; Deborah Chaney; Lorena Claeys; Randall D. Manteufel

reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civicresponsibility, and strengthen communities. Students in a technical elective robotics class in theMechanical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) optedfor either a final project or service learning for 25% of their grade. For SL, the students had towork with elementary and middle-school children in San Antonio over a period of 10 weeks tomentor them on building and programming robots with LEGO® Mindstorms® for the FIRST®LEGO® League tournament. In parallel, the undergraduates also learnt LEGO® Mindstorms inthe class by creating robots for assigned labs. This way they were able to apply concepts taughtin the class towards community service. As part of the

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Oziel Rios; Dani Fadda P.E.

brainstorming sessions, theimportance of iterations in design and documenting a design1,2,3. As part of this activity, thestudents learned to create 3D models of parts and assemblies.The activity is part of two freshman courses offered during the freshman year, MECH1100 andMECH1208. These courses have evolved from lecture based to project based courses withsupporting lectures. The two courses cover topics related to mechanical engineering: engineeringdesign, engineering drawing, 3D modeling of parts and assemblies, design innovation, computertools, project management, reverse engineering, engineering ethics, mechanical components,forces on structures, fluids, and thermal energy.In the 3D design activity, students learned the important role which CAD

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Jun-Ing Ker

engineering courses are stilldelivered in traditional classroom settings. Traditional education always faces the problem ofbridging the gap between what is taught in the classroom and what is needed in real life.Nevertheless, certain critical engineering skills cannot be fully comprehended in school withoutvertically integrating lower level and upper level engineering courses. For instance, in INEN401 Engineering Statistics II, industrial engineering juniors learn how to apply statistical qualitycontrol methods to monitor product quality in a manufacturing facility. While the quality controlconcepts are learned through lectures, homework exercises and a class project, students never gothrough the complete process of root causes identification and

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Benjamin Kelley

often attempted in upper-level engineering classes associatedwith a design project or other commercialization activity. An often cited impediment to insertingEM into the course content of lower level classes are that essential course content must besupplanted and that students are not yet at the knowledge level to have the technical maturity tobe meaningfully involved in value creation projects. Others have pointed to the contrasting viewthat although with less depth, exposure to innovation and creativity processes allows beginningengineering students to more easily implement them in upper-level projects and classes.4 Proceedings of the 2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Conference Organized by

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Raj Desai

used to encourage brainstorming and help enhance creativity. This iswhy innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership are critical skills for engineering students.Keywords – Projects, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, LeadershipIntroductionPractical innovative projects help students develop their portable skills. Portable skills are skills that cantransfer from one occupation to another, and from school to work. Both soft skills and hard skills helpencourage mobility of employees. This paper outlines the process for teaching these critical skills in ourclass “Introduction to Engineering.” The steps are idea generation, market research including stakeholderanalysis, evaluation, product design and development, product protection, and

Collection

2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Steve Watkins

for the parties can easily be projected. The case statement guides the analysis by includingseveral ethical issues. The case analysis should discuss the severity of the mishandling of thedata and the report and the actions of the various parties during the progression of events.The analysis for this case should conclude that the data reporting was mishandled and wasmisleading. A reference to code regarding highest standards of professional work is appropriatehere. However, the more challenging issues are how to dissent and how dissent was handled.The test engineer is faced with a choice between formally responding on ethical grounds (such asformally objecting to the report or to his authorship of the report) and becoming a party to theethical

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Sreedevi Ande P.E.

engagement and inspiration. In order to maximize the outreach to as many high schoolfemale students as possible regarding the GEMS camp and inspiring them towards choosing aSTEM career, high school students in San Antonio were invited to the GEMS camp to participatein hands-on engineering activities. Students gained valuable experience through challengingactivities that emphasized Civil and Electrical Engineering. The students presented theirexperiences, and the knowledge gained throughout the projects, by creating and delivering agroup poster presentation at the end. The outcomes of the camp included student’s increasedability to conceptualize engineering problems and an increased engagement in engineering byincorporating visualization tools in the

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

John Hansen; Chengzhu Yu

The Heroes Behind the Heroes of Apollo-11: Role of STEM John H. L. Hansen, Lakshmish Kaushik, Chengzhu Yu, Abhijeet Sangwan Center for Robust Speech Systems, Eric Jonsson School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA {john.hansen, abhijeet.sangwan, lakshmish.kaushik, chengzhu.yu}@utdallas.eduAbstractDuring Apollo-11 project, countless scientists, engineers, technicians worked behind the scenes to ensurethat both the solutions and the execution of the detailed flight plan was a success. It is our goal to create aninteractive application that allows users to explore NASA’s archive of Apollo missions. The application

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Shuping Wang

forthcoming. In the future, weplan to add a semester-long simulation project (e.g. using Optiwave software for WDMoptical system design) to further enhance student learning experiences.References1 “IEEE P802.3ba 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet Task Force,” official web site, IEEE, 19th June 2010, Retrieved 9th January, 2017.Shuping Wang Shuping Wang received the B.S. degree in electronics engineering from Peking University, Beijing, China, in 1982 and the M.S. degree in physics from the Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, in 1990 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, in 1996. She is an Associate Professor of engineering technology with the University

Collection

2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Tulio Sulbaran

decisionsimpact each individual project that collectively represents the construction industry which is oneof the largest economic sectors of most localities, states and countries around the globe.Although research has been done in decision making and some psychometric instruments exist inthis area, there was no tool that allowed to measure the decision making process of the AECpracticing professional and students. Thus, the focus of this research paper is to introduce theConstruction Decision Making Inventory (CDMI) that was recently developed by Dr. TulioSulbaran to fill this important gap in the AEC industry. The content of this paper is veryimportant as it helps better understand practicing professionals, educators and student. Thisunderstanding of

Collection

2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Patricia Polastri; Mojeed Awonuga

ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual ConferenceThe main sources of electricity generation in Nigeria are hydropower and thermal with fossilfuels such as natural gas and coal being the feed fuel for the thermal plants. Aliyu7 noted thathydropower plants could not be relied upon. He stated that the oscillatory nature of energy outputfrom hydropower plants (mainly due to seasonal changes) and the negative impacts experienceddue to climate change are decreasing the water levels required to run the hydropower plants. Thedilapidated state of the hydropower infrastructure also reduces significantly their energy outputwhen compared to their projected capacity. The thermal plants utilize mostly natural gas as feedfuel and the lack of adequate natural gas

Collection

2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Heather Shipley

for students to enroll and persist in highereducation, this project combines scholarships with other forms of academic and professionalsupport to ensure student persistence and completion of a B.S. Engineering degree. Providingresources and educational opportunities for undergraduate engineering students will increase thenumber of students graduating with Bachelor degrees in engineering and could encouragestudents to pursue Master’s and Doctoral degrees in sciences and engineering along withincreasing and diversifying the technical workforce in South-Central Texas. The overallobjective of the proposed program will be accomplished by successfully completing thefollowing three tasks: 1) Create an Undergraduate Engineering Scholarship Program

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

David Ewing

to easily move among the students as they work on solving problems. This physicalarrangement allows more one-on-one instructor interaction, providing for more personalizationof the learning process. - Projection screen - Marker Board - Lectern Figure 1. Classroom LayoutThe second key strategy was the hiring of upperclassmen to act as in-class assistants. Theseassistants offer support during the class by essentially reducing the student-to-teacher ratio,again

Collection

2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

David Ewing

Copyright © 2017, American Society for Engineering Education 2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual ConferenceThis arrangement allows students to solve problems together, fostering peer instruction, whichhas been shown to be more effective in student success than traditional lecture-based styles. Thearrangement also allows the professor to easily move among the students as they work onsolving problems. This physical arrangement allows more one-on-one instructor interaction,providing for more personalization of the learning process. - Projection screen - Marker

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Tariq Khraishi

Assignments/Homeworks: 15% 20% 15% Quizzes: 5% Group Presentation: 5% 5% 5% Exam 1: 30% 30% 30% Exam 2 (final): 40% 45% 45% Project*: 10% * not given in 2010 2010-2013 textbook: book by Joseph Priest, 6th edition, Kendall Hunt Publishing Co. 2014-2016 textbook: book by Joseph Priest & Mario Freamat, 6th edition, Kendall Hunt Publishing Co. Table 1

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Tony McClary; Germain Degardin; John Kulpa; Patricia Sullivan; Karen Trujillo

,” along with “keeping students mentally, and often physically, active in their learningthrough activities that involve them in gathering information, thinking, and problem solving”(Collins & O’Brien, 2003, p. 5). In more specific terms, the active learning experience cited bystudents referred to individual and group projects, hands-on activities and experiments, as well asfield trips. Proceedings of the 2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Conference Organized by The University of Texas at Dallas Copyright © 2017, American Society for Engineering Education 2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual ConferenceOf the 45 students included in the analyses, 29

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Amir Karimi

ability. Since 2012-13 accreditation cycle, programs are no longer arerequired to demonstrate that the graduate have the ability of meeting the stated requirements of thecurriculum topics, but the programs must require the students to apply the requirement of the statedtopics. Therefore, no more outcome assessment is necessary for the curriculum requirements ofthe ME Program Criteria. In the 2012-13 accreditation cycle programs had to prepare students towork professionally in both thermal and mechanical systems areas. This required students tocomplete design projects in both thermal and mechanical systems areas. This requirement waschanged in 2013-14 accreditation cycle and the programs are now required to prepare students towork professionally

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Wei Zhan

Engineering Education 2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual ConferenceImplementation Description: Effective Written and Oral Communications will be included in thecourse objectives of ESET 329 and ESET 359. Students will be asked to present their courseproject and submit a written project report. The quality of their presentation and the final projectreport will be used in the final grades.Projected Completion Date: 04/30/2017 Responsible Person/Group: Dr. ZhanAdditional Resources Requested: NoneThere is a section for “Analysis Questions and Analysis Answers” where the programs need toanswer the following question: “Based on the analysis of your findings, what changes are youcurrently making to improve your

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2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Ronald Barr

Conference Organized by The University of Texas at Dallas Copyright © 2017, American Society for Engineering Education 2017 ASEE Gulf-Southwest Section Annual ConferenceFaculty Course Assessment ReportsFaculty Course Assessment Reports (FCAR) are direct measures of student work in theirengineering courses. Each semester, over a span of several years, certain required engineeringcourses in the program curriculum are identified for assessment. The faculty member teachingthe course is asked to select samples of student work for the assessment. The student work couldbe samples of homework, tests, lab reports, project reports, and so forth. The sample size doesnot

Collection

2017 Gulf Southwest Section Conference

Authors

Diana Easton

, interdisciplinary topics applicable to thevarious phases of the lifecycle and includes real world deliverables that afford students someindustry equivalent experience. The systematic design of the classes and their associated real-world deliverables offer an integrated approach such that outputs of one course may be inputs toanother. Courses are intended to be taught by a coordinated team of qualified industry experts,regulators or skilled academics who can bring years of practical experience from the industry tothe classroom and keep content current to the global medical device industry. Integration ofindustry projects, and use of state of the art software tools, case studies, guest lectures, capstoneprojects and practical hands-on assignments are